Okay, so here's what I was originally going to upload. My first scratchboard! I really love the medium, so it was a thrill creating this. You can expect many more to come for sure! This is a willow ptarmigan, which is a kind of "grouse" for lack of a better word, and it lives up in the Canadian/Alaska area--the tundra. This is a male in fall plumage. In summer they are mostly brown and in winter they turn basically pure white. 12" x 9" scratchboard. References many thanks to a combination of them from JWFisher and some general online photos to get the details right.

Such a wonderful job done with the scratchboard! I can imagine it to be a fun medium, would be cool to try my hand at it sometime as well. I really love the fact you chose to do a ptarmigan for this one; they're such gorgeous birds yet quite a bit under appreciated in the art community. Lovely how you drew this handsome fella in his inbetween plumage; not quite white and not quite brown Thinking of ptarmigans I just can't help but link you to this photo on flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/brosha/1… Not sure if it is a Willow or a Rock ptarmigan, but it definitely is one of the most elegant looking ptarmigans I've ever seen. So beautiful, thought you'd maybe enjoy as well

Aww, thanks very much! You should! It's a very addicting medium, though, so you've been warned, haha. If you like drawing, then you'll love scratchboard (it's basically drawing in reverse with much more detail possibilities). I know, ptarmigans are such lovely birds. I really need to do a piece of an all white one like in the photo--that's such a gorgeous photo! Thanks for sharing that. I think it's probably a willow ptarmigan, as rock ptarmigans have a dark stripe running from the corner of their eye to the base of their beak in full winter plumage.

Hehe, I'll make sure I have time once I do finally put my hands on a scratchboard Drawing reverse like that really is an interesting switch from the more usual 'light-to-dark' method of work. You get the same working with white pencil on black paper. Thanks for the ptarmigan ID for the photo! They really are such handsome birds when totally turned into poofy white snowballs in winter. Can't wait to see whatever new work you create

You never know how much is too much until you've gone and done it, lol! I think you definitely got it right here. Are you using inks as well? I have heard that you can correct with ink and add depth with ink washes. (I'm super excited to try this.)

Yes, I've actually used some ink washes on this one to get that depth. I did some inking/rescratching on some of this with a brush, but I think on my wolf one I'm going to use my airbrush to add the ink washes, since it's a bit larger than this one.